Private Affairs

Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras was 64 years old. He was a reader and chairman of the department of Modern Indian Languages at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). He nurtured a dream—“I want to go to America,I want to teach them Marathi. Not the literature,the language. America is the only place where I will be free to be gay,” Siras had told The Indian Express correspondent,Deepu Sebastian Edmond. A few months ago,Siras also managed to be an unwitting victim of a sting operation,the objective of which was to simply establish him as a gay man—he was filmed having consensual sex with another adult male and subsequently suspended by AMU.

Day before yesterday,the man who spent most of his life popularizing Marathi literature across the country was found dead in his Aligarh home,and guess what newspaper headlines across the country screamed? ‘Gay professor found dead’. “It’s as if his identity revolved only around his sexuality. Moreover,the trend is to quickly shift focus from the larger issue and morbidly feed off the ‘unnatural’ death,” says city-based human rights lawyer,Debjyoti Ghosh. Thankfully,the implications of Siras’ suspension earlier this year managed to create nationwide outrage. “With the suspension the AMU seems to say that homosexuality is immoral despite the judgment of the Delhi High Court .Moreover the very idea of filming of Dr. Siras in the privacy of his home is a deplorable. It was a blatant violation of the fundamental rights of privacy and dignity granted to all citizens of the country,” says Arvind Narrain,a human rights activist and lawyer from the Alternative Law Forum,Bangalore.Dr Siras,was not the sort to give up without a fight andcontested his unlawful and unethical suspension from AMU on the grounds of “gross indecency”. “After decades of teaching,he was suspended merely a few months before his retirement on the basis of videotapes filmed by intruders into own home without his consent in a blatant and homophobic violation of his privacy,” says Narrain.

However,the argument against Dr Siras is that since he held the position of a professor,he had some moral responsibility towards his student. “What a person does in the privacy of his bedroom is nobody’s business. Moreover,he was involved in consensual sex with another adult. The only immoral thing here is the violation of privacy,” says Anindya Hajra of city based Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) support group,Prattay.

Though the case also brings into forefront the homophobic nature of most institutions in our country. How can we be sure that such an incident cannot happen in Kolkata? “I wouldn’t be surprised if such an incident does occur in our city. In fact,there has been a spate of gay-hate crimes in our city post the Delhi High Court incident. The truth is that our society is still very queasy about same-sex relationships,” says Ghosh.

Ironically,last week Allahabad High Court stayed his suspension and his unlawful removal from his official accommodation. On hearing the judgment Dr Siras said,“I am the same man with same qualifications and personality. Now I can go back to my beloved University.”